


I’m Just Screaming In Silence

by godamnarmsrace



Series: Robert Week 2017 [2]
Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, Free day, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Violence, No Character Death, Robert Sugden Week 2017, Robert Week 2017, a little bit fatal attraction a little bit days of our lives lol, robron - Freeform, someone gets shot, sorry not sorry but rebecca is a little cray cray in this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 16:14:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12016398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godamnarmsrace/pseuds/godamnarmsrace
Summary: Robert Week 2017 - Day 3 (6th September) - Free Day:Two more steps down and he could see the whole living room. Terror gripped his heart in a tight fist when he finally saw Rebecca. She had a gun. Rebecca had a gun, and she was pointing it at his husband.





	I’m Just Screaming In Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to the lovely [@blueswinseverytime](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewinseverytime/pseuds/Bluewinseverytime) for the wonderful edit.
> 
> Title from the fabulous song 'At Gunpoint' by Walking On Cars.

He's slow to wake, not sure what caused his shift in consciousness, but he can't breathe like something is weighing down his chest, dragging huge gasps of air out of him.  The last moments of a nightmare leave panic clinging to his bones, threaten to swallow him whole, and it's all he can do to hold himself from shaking apart.

The bed is cold next to him when he reaches out, and harsh voices speaking in hushed tones filter up to him from downstairs.

He rolls over trying to untangle himself from tight, constrictive blankets that had previously soothed him, but now held him firm, trapped, pushing the panic to the surface. 

Fear bleeds into everything, and for a moment he despairs the worst is happening. But it doesn't make sense; the voices downstairs don't fit. He’s alone, but he’s not alone. He hasn’t been abandoned, at least not yet.

Finally freeing himself from the tangle of his bed clothes he falls onto the ground, his knees smarting from the impact on the hard floor.

Now that he's unrestricted, he doesn't know what to do. He looks at the bed again when he makes it to his feet. He feels the absence of his husband like an ache he can't subside.

Creeping to the bedroom door, he opens it and steps out into the hall. His first instinct is to check on Liv, but then he remembers that she’s at Gabby’s for the night; both girls newly returned to the village eager to catch up and do whatever else teenage girls are wont to do.

When he reaches the top of the stairs, he can hear the voices more clearly, relief and fear twist together and battle with anger as he recognises the voices coming from below.

“This is all your fault!" Rebecca's voice was filling him with dread. He wants her gone, out of his house and away from his husband.

"It was never gonna be you, don't you understand that? It wouldn't have mattered what you did; it was never gonna be you.” There was something in his husband’s voice, a lazy acceptance that what was going to happen would happen, and it made the fear a living breathing thing, clawing at his gut and throat all at once. He needed to see him.

“You were never even a choice and whatever deluded thoughts or feelings you had, were never going to change a thing. Give up, get the fuck out of my house and leave my husband alone.”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Always trying to protect each other, who cares who you hurt in the process, right?” Rebecca all but screamed.

"You came to Emmerdale of your own free will, no one forced you, and you've hurt people, ruined lives, don't lay that all on us," his husband stepped into view, a blinding relief and a terrible fear. He was calm under threat, but not when his man was so close by to be endangered too.  She hadn’t seen him yet. Why wouldn’t she just leave them the hell alone?

He moved as silently down the metal staircase as he could, more than aware it offered little to no chance of hiding him from view. He didn’t know why, but his gut told him the element of surprise would be useful right now, but it was next to impossible with these damn stairs.

“I was invited remember. I was asked to come more than once,” Rebecca said, her voice shrill and piercing.

“You were used, a tool nothing more,” his husband said, and he looked and sounded so bored, as if thoroughly tired of this whole conversation.

It had taken them a while, but eventually, they had stopped fighting with each other long enough to realise that it was what Rebecca had wanted to drive a wedge between them both so that she could have Robert all to herself.

Chrissie had taken a little longer to wise up, but the phone call from her earlier this evening suggested that she knew there was something wrong with her sister. The word ‘obsession’ had been used, and he was pretty sure it was what had caused his nightmares. 

“I think we’ve more than established that, but if it weren't for you, I wouldn't be standing here right now. This wouldn’t be happening. It’s all your fault,” Rebecca’s voice hushed as if she’d suddenly realised that she had been yelling and someone might hear her.

Two more steps down and he could see the whole living room. Terror gripped his heart in a tight fist when he finally saw Rebecca. She had a gun. Rebecca had a gun, and she was pointing it at his husband.

“It’s my fault that you didn’t get what you wanted? Really? You really are a crazy bitch,” his husband not able to keep up his carefree front any longer. “Okay, fine so what do I need to do to make you leave?” he asked, his eyes never leaving the spiral monstrosity opposite him.

“You can die, Aaron,” Rebecca said, following him with the gun.

“No!” Robert cried out running down the stairs behind her.

Startled, she spun, she could see them both and backed up, fast, from where Robert approached her.

"You don't understand; he has to die. If it weren't for him, you would have chosen me. We'd be together right now," Rebecca explained, her tone was soft like she was talking to a child and Robert almost felt sorry for her until he saw her steady her aim at Aaron.

“I would never have chosen you,” Robert said, afraid to move in case she hurt his husband. “Aaron, get out.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Aaron hissed at him. “I’m not leaving you alone with her.”

“Even now he won’t let us be alone. I tried to come to you tonight. I knew you’d be sad because it’s your mum’s anniversary, Vic told me, and I knew you'd need me to comfort you, but he stopped me,” she looked like she wanted to come to him and Robert knew what he needed to do.

“You need to let Aaron go. Give me the gun Bex,” he said, steady tones a cover to his quaking insides, he stepped closer to her.

“Robert no!” Aaron started to move too, causing Rebecca to more her finger to the trigger of the gun.

“See! He’s always going to be here, trying to come between us Robert, he has to die!”

Robert was so fucking scared. This could all go so wrong so fast. He didn't want to live without Aaron; he couldn't lose him. Not after all they'd been through. "If you shoot him,” his voice broke on the idea of Aaron being hurt, he had to spin it, had to turn her attention to him. "If you harm Aaron, then you'll get arrested, and then we'll never be together. Give me the gun, and he'll leave. We can finally be together it's what you want, right?”

“Robert, don’t!” Aaron said shaking his head at his husband.

“Aaron please,” Robert all but begged, he needed his husband out of here and somewhere safe.

"Shut up! You think I'm stupid? Even now you're just trying to protect him. Him!? Why? I could have given you everything. Money, status, power, me and a family. We could have had it all," Rebecca swung the gun at Robert, and suddenly he could breathe again properly now that Aaron wasn't in imminent danger.

If he was going to die though, he was going to die with Aaron’s name on his lips and his husband wasn’t ever going to doubt he was loved.

“We could never have had it all Bex. I’m sorry, but you don't even really know me. Even Chrissie didn't know me because I'd been lying and scheming since the day I met you both. Aaron let me be me, he saw all the good and the bad, and he loved me anyway, despite my shortcomings. It wasn’t a choice. I didn’t choose to fall in love with him, but I did, and there will never be anyone else for me. I could never love you, Rebecca, because my heart is too full of Aaron. He is my family,” Robert knew he was pushing her, that his words, although not designed specifically to hurt her, could push her over the edge and he needed her rage to be directed wholly at him.

“No, you wanted me,” Rebecca said, shaking her head like she could shake off the truth in his words.

“It was all lies, you made him think he’d slept with you and he didn’t,” Aaron said pulling her attention back to him.

“He still texted me, he still told me he wanted me just because he was too drunk doesn’t mean anything,” Rebecca argued, the gun in her hand still pointing at Robert.

Robert tried to shake his head at Aaron to get him to shut up and leave. Bloody idiot, didn’t he understand that Robert was trying to save him, to get him free and clear.

“He might have texted and told you what you wanted to hear, but he was falling apart. He thought he’d lost me and he had to get drunk off his face to go anywhere near you. What about the next day and the day after that, did he want you then? When you lied and told him he was going to be a father, did he want you then? No, he came home to me because he loves me,” Aaron taunted and damn him, Robert knew he was trying to get the damn gun pointed back at him. Damn him, for trying to save Robert right back. It just wouldn’t do.

If anything, ever happened to Aaron…

Sirens filled the air and Robert looked at Aaron in shock.

“I called them when she first broke in, I’ve had the line open all this time,” Aaron confessed.

Rebecca’s eyes were wild, the sound of the police coming had her shifting the gun between them as she backed up towards the front door. Robert took a few steps, as if to follow her when she left, but stopped and he planted himself in front of Aaron, shielding him from harm’s way.

“What does he have that I don’t?” she asked as shuffled backwards still point the gun at him. The alarm, the pitiful fear of being caught clear in her expression.

"He's my Aaron," Robert said, and he knew she wouldn't understand, no one could, but Robert knew, and he hoped Aaron did, that was all that mattered.

“That’s not an answer!” She yelled.

At that moment two things happened; Aaron tried to step in front of Robert, and Rebecca stumbled over the coffee table.

The noise from the gun seemed louder than Robert remembered. It wasn’t like the last time someone shot him, maybe because they were inside, perhaps that insulated the sound somehow. thoughts in a haze of pain. It hurt the same. Then a burning pain that told him the bullet had torn through his flesh, wreaking havoc as it went, but this too wasn’t important, it meant that Aaron was okay, he was safe.

“What did you do?” Aaron’s words seemed far away and over and over, he said the same thing first to Rebecca and then to Robert who’d pushed him out of the line of fire. “What did you do?”

“It was an accident! Robert! Robert!” Rebecca cried out.

“You better not die on me you bastard, you promised me until at least eighty, and I am holding you to it. Please, Robert, you can’t leave me. Please don’t do this,” Aaron said, fierce. Pressing his words into Robert’s chest where Aaron’s pushed down on his wound with his hands, his head against Robert as if listening to his heart beating.

It hurt. Fuck, it hurt, but it was different from the last time. Robert didn't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing. “I love you, Aaron, you know that, right?”

“I know,” Aaron nodded pressing his lips to Robert’s and then he was being dragged away. The paramedics were ripping open Robert’s shirt and shouting orders.

He must have passed out because he came to in the ambulance, a worried looking Aaron with tears streaming down his face, holding his hand.

“He’s awake,” he said to someone, but Robert only cared about one thing.

“Are you okay?” he asked his husband.

Aaron pulled a face, not quite amused, but it shifted to disbelief too quickly for Robert to figure it out, “Am I okay? Are you fucking serious Robert? You got shot, again!”

“Rebecca?” he asked because he needed to make sure Aaron would be safe now.

“In police custody,” Aaron said, squeezing Robert’s hand tight.

 

He's slow to wake, not sure what caused his shift to consciousness, but he can't breathe, pain is weighing down his chest dragging huge gasps from out of him.  The last moments of a nightmare leave panic clinging to his bones, thoughts of Aaron bleeding out on the ground in front of him threatening to swallow him whole. It’s only the hand holding his that keeps him grounded, “Aaron?”

“Shh, just rest. You’re going to be okay. The doctor said it was a miracle the bullet hit your sternum and glanced off the bone, but got stuck in the scar tissue from your old bullet wound before it could hit your heart. They were able to remove it without any trouble. You’re gonna be stuck here and sore for a while, but you’re going to be okay. Don’t ever fucking do that to me again!” Aaron spoke softly, shock still coursing through him. He puts his lips to their joined hands, then brushes small kisses against his cheek and over his mouth.

“I couldn’t let her hurt you,” Robert replied each word like a knife in his chest, fuck he’d been shot. He hadn’t missed this pain, but it was different this time. Aaron was here with him. “Stay?” he asked, even as he knew he should send Aaron home, he looked wrecked, and Robert knew better than anyone how uncomfortable those hospital chairs could be.

“That was never not an option. We need to get married legally too. I don't need it it's real, but the duty nurse tried to stop me from coming in here because intensive care is immediate family only and I can’t be told I don’t have a right to sit next to you by anyone. Oh, and I’m getting you a bulletproof vest for Christmas, at this point it seems like a solid investment. I can’t ever be without you, Robert.”

Robert stifled the urge to laugh at only because he knew it would hurt like hell if he did, they grinned at each other.

"Name the time and the place, and I'll be there Mr Sugden,” Robert said shifting slowly in the small bed. “Come here,” he said gesturing to the space he’d made.

“Don’t be dim Robert, you’ve been shot and just had surgery, whatever you're after will have to wait until we’re home,” Aaron said with a small smile and warm eyes.

“I just want to lie next to my husband. Please, Aaron, I could have lost you tonight,” Robert tried to use the hand holding his to tug Aaron to where he wanted him.

Aaron let out a small sigh and climbed carefully onto the bed next to Robert, “I’ll probably get kicked out of here for this, but I could have lost you too, and I still can't make myself believe that you are going to be okay. I love you, soft lad."

 

 

 

 


End file.
